We all secretly want to be geniuses. I see it in myself and in every artist, engineer, and researcher I know — this burning desire to make something that breaks all the rules in exactly the right way. We look at the mess of current social media, or the staleness of pop music, or the predictability of most research papers, and we think: I could do this better. I could make something real. Something that matters. We want our work to be difficult enough to prove we’re smart, different enough to prove we’re special, and impressive enough to make people pay attention. The truth is, we’re all chasing that sweet spot where intellectual satisfaction meets external validation. But here’s what I’m learning about making truly innovative things: it’s self-chosen exile

I’ve been thinking about Charlie Puth lately. Not because I’m particularly obsessed with his music, but because he represents something I’m trying to understand about art and innovation. Here’s a guy who could easily show off his complex musical knowledge - he has perfect pitch, he understands jazz harmony, he could probably write the kind of songs that make other musicians go “wow.” Instead, he makes pop songs for the millions of people. For a long time, I thought Puth was choosing the easy path to riches instead of using his talents. Then I look at Jacob Collier, another musical prodigy who went the opposite direction. He let his genius run wild, creating intricate harmonies that musicians analyze in awe. His work is brilliant and largely unheard of outside a small circle. Two prodigies, two paths - one chose to simplify his gift, the other to complicate it.

The thing about making accessible work is it seems like you’re always subtracting - removing the weird harmonies, simplifying the complex ideas, smoothing out the rough edges until what’s left feels like a photocopy of a photocopy. Two ends of the spectrum are Christopher Nolan’s Tenet and Mr Beast’s Youtube content (maximizing audience). You can argue it’s algorithmic slop, as everything wrong with modern entertainment. But there’s something almost brilliant about it too - the way he stripped away everything non-essential until he found the bare bones of what makes millions of people click, watch, and care. He’s innovated on producing mass market content, getting eyeballs that Hollywood and mainstream media couldn’t replicate if they wanted to (and I’m sure they do).

When I look at fashion, I see the same pattern. I rejected the mid low brow work that has produced mass garbage. I’d look at Zara taking runway concepts and ultimately destroying the art and intent in the process. Meryl Streep’s character in The Devil Wears Prada explaining how high fashion influences everyone’s clothes, “it was just watering things down” by stealing trends or work from the real designers up at the ivory gates of Ralph Lauren and LV.

When I was younger, I wore my obscure tastes like a badge of honor. We cling to taste like a secret handshake, using its inaccessibility as proof of our own sophistication. There are different forms of this in my friends — political jargon, incomprehensible research papers, designers swooning over uncomfortable chairs. It’s a comfortable cult of mutual validation.

But I’m starting to see it differently now. You can do it right. Everyone wants to be the avant-garde designer making unwearable fashion show pieces, but someone like Uniqlo/Lemaire is doing something more interesting. Taking high fashion ideas and turning them into clothes that actual people might want to put on their bodies. They have elevated the status quo of the median man that doesn’t know how to dress — by making really good design accessible to regular people who don’t have the time or money to obsess over clothes. These aren’t just copies or simplifications - they’re translations. But there’s a fine line to be drawn here.

When I look at my own work now, I’m finally understanding that there’s no balance to strike - there’s only the path you choose and its inherent consequences. If you’re pushing into truly new territory, a small audience isn’t a problem to solve but a reality to embrace. Schopenhauer: truth moves from ridicule to opposition to seeming self-evident. Sometimes that journey makes you Van Gogh, celebrated too late; sometimes your work remains obscure forever; sometimes you actually get to see your innovation become accepted. But trying to shortcut that process by making your work accessible by sacrificing your artistic integrity is like trying to negotiate with gravity. The size of your audience isn’t a metric to optimize - it’s a natural outcome of how far you’re pushing into unknown territory.

What’s freeing me from constant doubt is recognizing that working in popular forms isn’t some kind of artistic compromise - it’s its own form of innovation, with its own nobility and challenges. The work might reach more people, but that’s not guaranteed either - it just has more potential for immediate connection. I’m learning to see these not as choices between artistic integrity and mass appeal, but as different tools for different goals. The question isn’t “How do I balance innovation and accessibility?” but “What am I actually trying to do here, and am I willing to accept the constraints that come with that choice?”

I think about how my own obsessions have always pulled me in both directions - sometimes toward the experimental and alienating, sometimes toward the familiar and accessible. What I’m realizing now is that the real challenge isn’t finding some perfect middle ground, but having the courage to fully commit to whichever path the work demands. To accept that if you’re truly innovating, most people won’t get it at first, and that’s okay. Either way, the key is to stop looking for compromise and start embracing the natural consequences of your artistic choices. Because in the end, the only real failure isn’t in having too small or too large an audience - it’s in trying so hard to control who understands your work that you forget what you were trying to say in the first place.